I’ve been pretty burnt out on politics lately, but I’ve been following the Republican caucus scheduling fiasco pretty closely. (I admit the thing keeping me interested is probably schadenfreude.) This cartoon by Brian Duffy is a fantastic summary, although it unfortunately leaves out the situation in Nevada.
Here’s Michael A. Memoli for the Los Angeles Times:
Nevada Republicans on Saturday voted to move the date of their nominating caucuses to February, a decision that likely ends uncertainty over the 2012 election calendar and avoids having the first votes for president cast this year.
The state party’s executive committee shifted the GOP caucuses to Feb. 4, after New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner said he was prepared to call the first-in-the-nation primary in December if Nevada’s caucuses remained on Jan. 14.
…
The Republican National Committee had initially adopted rules calling for presidential nominating contests to begin in February in four states: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. But Florida leaders announced last month that they would hold the state’s primary on Jan. 31. South Carolina Republicans then called for a Jan. 21 primary, followed by Nevada’s initial decision to move to the 14th.
But then Gardner, citing state law that requires seven days between the New Hampshire primary and any “similar election,” said he would be forced in that scenario to call his state’s vote in December. Most Republican presidential candidates then said they would boycott Nevada’s caucuses if the state did not move to allow New Hampshire to remain in January.